Research Project: The Right to Housing for Disabled People in Canada

Barriers to realizing the right to housing for disabled people* are largely unexplored, making it difficult to understand why a significant proportion of people experiencing homelessness have disabilities. To address this gap, this project aims to develop a research agenda on discrimination and the right to housing for people with disabilities in Canada, with the goal of helping them overcome the significant barriers they face when trying to realize this right. 

The project will bring together partners from a range of sectors including people with lived experience, universities, non-profit organizations, housing providers, developers and decision-makers. Through building research networks, knowledge exchanges and capacity building, data gathering and analysis, and creating and sharing knowledge among these partners, the project will identify how discrimination and the denial of appropriate housing can be overcome through additional supports for disabled people, as well as changes to policy and legislation. 

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Using a critical disability lens 

The research is being conducted through a critical lens and uses the social model of disability. The social model locates disability and disablement in societal attitudes and structures rather than minds and bodies. From this perspective, housing systems in Canada should be set up in a way that are not exclusionary toward or restrictive of people with disabilities, especially with such a basic right as housing. The project also adopts a human rights model that recognizes disability as a natural part of human diversity that needs to be respected and supported in all its forms. According to this model, disabled people have the same rights as everyone else in society, and disability must not be used as an excuse to deny or restrict people’s rights.  

Finally, we use a disability justice framework that moves beyond legal and political rights. Disability justice is intersectional and inclusive, led by those who are most oppressed. Ableism is understood as inextricably intertwined with heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism.

Research questions 

Supporting and empowering people with disabilities with appropriate housing in a non-discriminatory manner involves a range of interventions, including eviction diversion and prevention, housing stabilization, income supports, and a range of accessible housing opportunities.

Toward that end, this project has three broad research questions:

1. How do disabled people experience the right to housing in Canada?   
2. What discriminatory barriers do they face?   
3. What supports, procedural or process changes, and revisions to laws, policies, and programs can help them overcome these barriers?  

Constructing a research agenda

The Government of Canada’s historic 2019 National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA) legislated the right to housing in Canada. This aligned Canada with United Nations covenants that guarantee the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing. It developed a National Housing Strategy (NHS) that commits Canada to progressively realize the right to housing by implementing policies that will improve housing conditions and affordability across the country. Joining a small handful of countries with rights-based housing legislation, the NHSA set Canada apart as a global leader. However, leaders must have their house in order. 

  Implementing the right to housing implicates issues such as the availability of accessible housing and the supports required by people with disabilities to remain housed, the availability and appropriateness of income supports to sustain tenancy arrangements, and fair adjudicative processes surrounding evictions. However, barriers to the right to housing for disabled people are largely unexplored. This historical gap in research and analysis makes it difficult to ascertain why a significant proportion of people experiencing homelessness have disabilities. The timing could not be more urgent given the broader housing and cost-of-living crisis in Canada, which disproportionately affects disabled people. 

This research project addresses a major empirical gap by investigating the varying experiences of discrimination faced by people with disabilities and the way they overcome discriminatory barriers in four Canadian provinces – Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia. The goal of this project is to make a major contribution to a research agenda concerning the right to housing for disabled people and how ongoing experiences of discrimination are preventing people with disabilities from realizing their right to housing in Canada.

Historical gaps 

There is limited documentation, data and peer-reviewed research on the housing experiences of disabled people in Canada. Our annotated bibliography is the first comprehensive collection of grey literature on the right to housing for disabled people in Canada. However, most existing English-language research on disability and housing is from the United States, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and Australia. 

Research that does exist has only begun to grapple with the rights of disabled people to access housing and has pointed to the importance of mapping the structural and real-life barriers they face when securing affordable and adequate housing.  

Meanwhile, people with disabilities face numerous forms of discrimination when securing appropriate housing. These include housing design and construction (the general accessibility and adaptability of the physical environment), the availability and presentation of information on housing options, the economic factors that affect access to housing (including general affordability and the ability to secure housing finance), and the role of various actors involved in the process of building, selling, and allocating housing.  

The limited and anecdotal evidence that does exist points to important problems but is decidedly inadequate for robust decision-making in programming and policymaking. This evidential gap is consequential and a research agenda that spans both academia and community research organizations is urgently needed to guide evidence and knowledge-building.

Approach

The Right to Housing for Disabled People project agenda is constructed according to a three-part framing of the problem of discrimination: 

1. The root causes of discrimination against people with disabilities in housing.   
2. Discrimination inside dispute resolution processes regarding eviction and securing appropriate housing.   
3. Discrimination in the provision of appropriate accessible housing to disabled people.  

Across this framing, the research agenda we are constructing examines the right to housing through perspectives including:  

1. Sensitivity to the gendered aspects of discrimination, including for cisgender women and girls, transgender, non-binary, and Two Spirit people.   
2. An intersectional approach to better understand how identity markers (e.g., race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, disability) interact with social and political power structures in discrimination against renters with disabilities. 
3. Ensuring that disabled parents, guardians, or prospective parents are not discriminated against based on disability.

Research model 

This project promotes an understanding of the right to housing as described in Canadian and international law. It adopts a human rights model, the social model of disability, and a disability justice framework, critically exploring the mechanisms of law and policy related to housing, disability, social justice, and the lived experience of marginalized and disadvantaged groups who experience discrimination. As such, our theoretical approaches are rooted in the “right to housing” concept.  

International law commits national governments to respecting, protecting, and realizing the right to adequate housing within their countries. International law defines the right to housing according to seven key components: affordability, security of tenure, accessibility, habitability, location, cultural adequacy and availability of services, facilities, and infrastructure.  

From a right to housing perspective, homelessness is a gross violation of the right to housing, and governments must do everything within their power to prevent homelessness amongst their population. Losing one’s home is a key pathway to homelessness, and viewed from a right to housing perspective, eviction violates the right to housing by removing security of tenure. By incorporating a right to housing lens, this research will examine why, and in what ways, existing policies and adjudicative processes may violate the right to housing of people with disabilities in Canada. It will also point to solutions that strengthen the right to housing and prevent homelessness for disabled people.

Updates and findings from this project will be shared on this page. Please check again soon or sign up to CCHR’s newsletter to receive email updates.

Resources and reports

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A note on terminology 

* The use of “person-first” language (people with disabilities) vs. “identity-first” language (disabled people) is contentious within disability communities. Identity-first language is generally preferred by contemporary disability activists as it places the focus on societal barriers (i.e., disabled people are disabled by society). However, some others, especially people labelled with an intellectual disability, tend to prefer person-first language. We have used both forms in this paper to respect the preferences of members of these various communities.